Replication Data for:

Strategic Bureaucratic Silence: A Mechanism for Norm Adoption and Core Insulation in International Politics (1950–1990)

Author

Ivan L. B. Ferraz

Date

January 2026

Overview

This repository contains the replication materials for the article:

“Strategic Bureaucratic Silence: A Mechanism for Norm Adoption and Core Insulation in International Politics,
Evidence from U.S. Foreign Policy (1950–1990)”

The replication package is designed to meet the data transparency and reproducibility standards of International Organization and the Harvard Dataverse.

All tables, figures, and empirical results reported in the article can be reproduced directly from the script provided in this repository.

Contents

This replication package includes the following files:

SBS_replication_IO.R

A fully documented R script that:

retrieves archival metadata programmatically from the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS);

constructs a panel dataset covering the period 1950–1990;

estimates interaction-based generalized linear models (GLMs) with robust inference;

performs stationarity diagnostics; and

generates the main descriptive figure reported in the article (Figure 1).

Figure_1_SBS_IO.pdf

IO-ready version of Figure 1 generated directly by the replication script.

README.txt

This document.

Data Sources

All data are retrieved programmatically from public archival sources:

Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)
Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
https://history.state.gov

No simulated, proprietary, restricted, or confidential data are used in this replication package.

Time Coverage

1950–1990

Methodological Notes

The main empirical analysis relies on interaction-based generalized linear models (GLMs) estimated with HC1 robust standard errors.

A Gaussian GLM specification is used for interpretability. Results are robust to alternative count-based specifications (e.g., Poisson).

The LOESS smoothing displayed in Figure 1 is purely descriptive and does not imply causal inference.

Stationarity diagnostics are conducted using Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) tests by bureaucratic domain.

Reproducibility Instructions

To reproduce all results reported in the article:

Open the file SBS_replication_IO.R in R or RStudio.

Ensure an active internet connection (required to access the FRUS API).

Run the script from top to bottom.

The script automatically:

installs required packages (if missing);

downloads all archival metadata;

constructs the panel dataset;

estimates the statistical models; and

generates the figure in PDF format.

No manual data cleaning or intermediate steps are required.

Software Requirements

R (version 4.0 or higher recommended)

Packages loaded via pacman, including:

tidyverse

httr

xml2

tseries

sandwich

lmtest

broom

knitr

Licensing and Use

These replication materials are provided for scholarly verification and research use, in accordance with the International Organization Replication Policy and the APSA Ethics Guide.

Any reuse of the data construction procedures, code, or analytical logic must cite the original article:

Ferraz, Ivan L. B. (2026).
Strategic Bureaucratic Silence: A Mechanism for Norm Adoption and Core Insulation in International Politics, Evidence from U.S. Foreign Policy (1950–1990).

The code contained in this repository is the intellectual property of the author and is made available exclusively for academic verification and research purposes.
Unauthorized reuse without proper citation is prohibited.